William Morris’s country home to receive £4.3m lottery grant

Our daily round-up of news from the art world

William Morris’s country home to receive £4.3m lottery grant | Kelmscott Manor, the country home of Arts and Crafts pioneer William Morris, will receive a grant of £4.3m from the National Lottery, enabling urgent repairs to be carried out on the building. There are also plans to renovate the gardens, and to construct a new learning centre and visitor facilities. Kelmscott Manor contains a significant collection of works by Morris and his family, as well as by contemporaries including Edward Burne-Jones, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and Ford Madox Brown.

Bauhaus Dessau Foundation criticised after performance cancellation | An open letter signed by a number of artists, critics and academics has criticised the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation’s cancellation of a performance by the left-wing punk band Feine Sahne Fischfilet, ARTnews reports. The concert was cancelled after the conservative Christian Democratic Union party, as well as the far-right Alternative für Deutschland, threatened to stage a demonstration at the event. The foundation stated that the performance was called off because of the ‘politically extreme positions’ held by the band; however, the open letter argued that the decision is ‘alarmingly forgetful of history’.

Studio Voltaire in London announces £2.3m capital project | The London-based not-for-profit arts organisation Studio Voltaire has announced plans for a capital project that will see the creation of more artist studios, the renovation of existing exhibition space and new public facilities. Studio Voltaire has supported the careers of a number of British and international artists over the years, including Phyllida Barlow, Sanya Kantarovsky and Elizabeth Price. The £2.3m scheme also includes plans to establish a permanent home on-site in Clapham, south London, for the institution’s art and design shop, House of Voltaire.